Google overhauls its Maps app, adding in more AI features to help people get around

Google Maps will rely more on artificial intelligence to help people figure out where they want to go and the best way to get there under a major overhaul unveiled Thursday.

Google’s Gemini technology-driven redesign will introduce two AI features to a digital mapping service used by more than 2 billion people worldwide.

A tool called Ask Maps will expand on the conversational capabilities that Google brought to the service last November, giving suggestions to users searching for things like nearby places to charge their devices, cafes with short lines, or a detailed route for a road trip involving multiple stops and excursions.

Gemini’s recommendations will be based on a database covering more than 300 million places and the opinions of more than 500 million contributors accumulated since the debut of Google Maps more than 20 years ago. Google executives declined to answer a question about whether the company eventually plans to sell ads to increase businesses’ chances of being shown in Ask Maps recommendations. Ask Maps will initially be available on the Google Maps mobile app for iPhone and Android software in the United States and India, before expanding to personal computers and other countries.

In what Google executives say is the biggest change to map driving directions, Gemini has also created a new tool called Immersive Navigation that will present a three-dimensional perspective designed to give users a better understanding of where they are at any time. The 3D renderings created by Gemini will include landmarks such as notable buildings, medians on roads and other aspects of the terrain that drivers see around them as they drive to help them orient themselves more quickly.

Google believes its AI safeguards are now strong enough to prevent the Gemini technology that underpins immersive navigation from manufacturing fake places to go, a malfunction known in the industry as “hallucination.”

Immersive navigation is also supposed to help Google Maps more clearly explain the pros and cons of different driving routes based on the same recommendation, as well as indicate the best places to park once a user arrives at a designated destination. The new AI-based navigation will initially only be available in the United States, on the Google Maps mobile app for iPhone and Android, as well as on cars equipped with options to enable CarPlay and Android Auto.

The increased reliance on AI in Google Maps follows the company’s introduction of more Gemini technologies to make two of its other most popular products – Gmail and the Chrome web browser – more proactive and useful to their billions of users. The expansion underscores Google’s confidence in the Gemini 3 model that the Mountain View, Calif., company launched late last year as part of an intensifying battle for AI supremacy with emerging rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.